KENYA – The International Finance Corporation (IFC) of the World Bank, has announced that Germany-based healthcare products provider, Siemens Healthineers, has joined its Africa Medical Equipment Facility (AMEF) program.
IFC’s AMEF program is striving to make medical imaging and cancer care equipment more affordable on the continent.
Siemens Healthineers’ participation in the AMEF will help smaller healthcare companies in Kenya and Côte d’Ivoire to purchase or lease medical equipment to better serve patients in diagnosis and care.
The program was launched in 2021 to support Africa’s smaller healthcare operators, which often struggle to secure bank loans, to more easily access the equipment they need to serve patients across income levels.
Siemens Healthineers offers a product and service portfolio in diagnostics, image-guided therapy, and innovative cancer care, including artificial intelligence-supported applications and digital offerings, that play an increasing role in the next generation of medical technology.
Ole Per Maloy, head of Siemens Healthineers in the Middle East, Southern, and Eastern Africa remarked that the limited access to financing was a problem for many of Siemens customers in Africa.
Maloy added that with more equitable access to imaging and cancer-care equipment, Siemens Healthineers and its Varian business could contribute to strengthening the continent’s healthcare systems by enabling earlier diagnosis and treatment.
Maloy pointed out that Siemens Magnetom Free.Star MRI scanner, for example, with virtually helium-free cooling, meant that it could be installed in areas previously too remote to serve.
“IFC’s AMEF program underpins our Access to Care strategy, making our healthcare innovations accessible to everyone, no matter where they live,” reassured Ole Per Maloy.
Henrik Elschner Pedersen, IFC Regional Industry Director in Africa for Manufacturing, Agribusiness and Services also acknowledged that AMEF welcomed the participation of Siemens Healthineers, which would help make medical scanning equipment more accessible in Africa.
“Siemens Healthineers’ innovative products will support more healthcare providers to expand access to life-saving care to underserved areas,” Pedersen said.
Siemens Healthineers joins the likes of fellow leading health technology companies Getinge, Philips, and GE Healthcare and endoscope manufacturer KARL STORZ alongside local lending banks Co-operative Bank of Kenya.
AMEF, building a new model to support health infrastructure financing
IFC’s AMEF is supported by the blended finance facility of the International Development Association’s Private Sector Window and the Global Financing Facility for Women, Children, and Adolescents.
The facility includes an advisory services program to help small healthcare businesses strengthen their medical equipment procurement processes, financial management competencies and business planning.
The advisory program, active in Côte d’Ivoire and Kenya, will also help participating financial institutions strengthen their credit-underwriting skills for the healthcare sector.
Currently, in its first phase, the program has provided over US$100 million in Unfunded Risk Sharing Facility (RSF) with local participating financial institutions (PFIs).
While original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) will provide up to US$200m in loans and leases for medical equipment to small and medium-sized primary health clinics, diagnostic centers, maternity clinics, and hospitals, other secondary and tertiary hospitals in Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire, Kenya, Rwanda, Senegal, Tanzania, and Uganda.
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